Voidian Knights: Early Years
by Weaver Chance
Summary: Timelines collide drawing ten strangers to the Post BoF2 world. Will they seperate the timelines again or tear the world apart? Rated to be safe, for possible later content
1. The Call: Can You Hear It?

I guess I should mention that while all the characters mentioned in this chapter are mine I don't own the worlds some of them come from and that later the story will move into being more of a fanfic because of the world the main story is set in, anyway I hope you enjoy my first attempt at any kind of published work!

**_Voidian Knights_**

_**Prologue: Can you hear it?**_

_--_

_Can you not hear it,_  
_Can't you hear it calling?_  
_Can't you feel it pulling on your very essence?_  
_I heard it, I felt it_  
_And I answered that Call_  
_In more ways than one._

_--_

A figure lay in bed, restlessly trying to sleep in a room where various items hung from the ceiling and clutter gathered at the edges except for a clear path between the bed and the door.  
The figure, finally giving up on sleep, sat up and looked about the room that was fitfully lit by curtain filtered full-moon light before turning to the left to look up at the red glow of the bed head clock, 3:00, it read.  
Drawing the curtain aside revealed the figure to be a male with pale skin and unkempt dark hair from the figure's attempts to get comfortable. The pale moonlight only made this contrast harsher.  
As the figure watched the moon his eyes changed colour, from a rippled and graded grey, to a deep blue with hints of green.  
Lamenting somewhat at the earliness, the figure proceeded to prepare for the day.

--

Krrr Riol, a dappled grey-black **Nephilim** and **Avernite** adventurer, was fighting a group of **Avernum**'s denizens with a band of fellow adventurers.  
He had just commanded some beasts to join their assault and nocked a fresh arrow when the Call reached him and he vanished from his world, never to be seen there again.

--

Jroa Tlaw awoke suddenly, his luminescent green eyes darting about, taking in his surroundings. He was at the bottom of a long shaft, various pieces of basic Dragon Clan armour lay about him.  
He relaxed and scales became skin, claws became fingers and toes, the beginnings of a frill became ribbed ears. His tail vanished and his bronze mane became indigo hair.  
He shivered and quickly donned the clothes and armour left for him. Both he and his equipment were unaged despite the unknown amount of years that he had spent in a hibernation meant to potentially last centuries. Lastly, he grasped the shield and sword and used the residual magic in the shaft to escape.  
It was the Call that had woken Him.

--

Griffin Pelment, Elemental Warrior & Captain of The Gatemaker, sat in contemplation, a half-dozen tiny suns frolicking amongst the fingers of his upraised right hand.  
"You do know that that is a bit disconcerting, right?" Jenna asked. This was an opinion which was supported by Ota and Com. Claire and Sam, however, were unaffected by his simple display, a fact that Griffin was happy to point out to them.  
"That's because Claire is in Research Mode and-" Jenna began.  
"And Sam has the hots for you." Ota interrupted. He was pointedly ignored by Griffin and a now blushing Sam.  
Griffin suddenly vanished, and moments later The Gatemaker locked on to Griffin's ethereal trail and followed him to this new world.

--

Kara Lorrud sighed as she pocketed the jewel that she had taken from its' display case just moments ago.  
"Barely worth my time," she commented, "and the security was really lax too. Maybe I should go and wake them up and see if they can provide me with a bit of fun... Why not? The night is still young."  
So she proceeded towards the Guards' Barracks, so that at the very least she could get some enjoyment from her latest theft, stopping by the Armoury on the way to procure a number of good quality knives and daggers.  
"At least the weaponry is decent; well balanced enough to be thrown with reasonable accuracy as well."  
It just so happened that the Call reached her when she was teasing the entire barracks full of guards, and she grinned at them wickedly as she answered.  
Weeks of psychiatric fieldwork followed, & the mystery of where the worlds greatest thief vanished to, and even the location of her treasure hoard is still a popular topic of discussion in that world.

_--_

_Have you ever been called to something_  
Really_ called to something_  
_By your very soul,_  
_By your spirit, by your blood,_  
_By the very essence of who you are._

_Have you ever felt such a calling_  
_That _had_ to be answered, regardless_  
_A calling that draws you to a place_  
_Or person and doesn't tell you why_  
_Just that something must be done_  
_In this place or with that person._

_Just to leave you stumbling, unbalanced_  
_Confused, searching yourself for_  
_Answers but finding only questions_  
_Why is this place important?_  
_What's so special about that person?_  
_Why can't I just be free of it all?_

_But my blood still calls_  
_My spirit still seeks_  
_And my soul still yearns_  
_Who ... What ... am I?_

_--_

The figure dressed himself all in black, even down to the sneakers on his feet. He put an almost identical outfit, as well as a pair of sturdy black boots, a length of rope, a number of items that could be loosely referred to as Craft Tools, a packed lunch and some writing implements in a backpack.  
It was only once this bag was slung over his shoulder that The Call reached him and he vanished from his world forever.

--

Rethan Gates stood watching a battle. As a Power Balance he was a neutral to this war. As a Power Balance he was immortal, and these mortals were killing each other practically in his backyard.  
If his balance had been Water and Fire then he'd have frozen or drowned one side & incinerated the other by now; if he'd been Earth and Air one side would have choked & the other been crushed.  
However, his balance was undeniably Life and Death, so he stood and watched them slaughter each other with mounting annoyance.  
When he could take no more he stormed in, killing with but a touch and driving mad with but a glance.  
He soon came to where the armies' commanders were fighting and demanded that they both withdraw from the field.  
One arrogantly refused, slashing at Rethan, leaving a shallow cut along his forearm.  
Rethan screamed from the intense pain torturing his arm and raised his scythe, unleashing a shadow of death that instantly killing the offending commander and his entire army.  
The other commander, upon seeing this, quickly tore her tunic up into bandages and bound the injured appendage of the still shaking Rethan.  
"Forgive us, Milord. We shall clean up the field and then leave the area," she said, bowing to Rethan.  
Rethan smiled upon this commander, one eye closed, and all on that side of the conflict were given the strength of life to recover from their injuries and their dead rose again. The side that had been given Life built a pyre for the side given Death.  
Rethan was returning home, wincing in agony as his arm tried to rip itself apart when The Call reached him and he was gone.

--

Will Hreasure was wandering while lost in thought, as it seemed to him that he was practically a wind elemental as well as an air elemental. He had just reasoned out, not for the first time, that they must just be two names for the same thing when, as usual for Will's revelations, something happened to make him forget it completely (in truth this was probably the fourth time he had come to this conclusion).  
By now those of you who have actually been reading these accounts will no doubt realise just what distracted Will this time, so I'll point out now that the only forms of life in Will's world are Elementals, from Fire, Water, Earth, & Air/Wind to Stone, Metal, Mud, Lightning, Wood & Quintessence.  
Now, as you probably guessed, Will was distracted by The Call, but he still answered and vanished from his world.

--

The next world we come to is called Ardania by its inhabitants.  
It is a rather interesting world, with a strong Heroic presence, a few signs of visitors from beyond, and individuals who don't always acknowledge time as a constraint.  
Rax Drakko is one such individual. He will sometimes stir up time by instinct, mostly to escape his creator; a Wizard who had magically combined the DNA of Humans, Fire Dragons and Ice Dragons. Rax, a Warrior of Discord, was the result.  
Rax was once again cornered by his creator, and his thoughts slowed as a result of his conflicting powers of Fire and Ice.  
He had begun to instinctively bend time to allow his escape when The Call reached him, and though he would be seen again in this world of his origin, he would only be visiting.

--

Eight of our heroes have been gathered but two remain.  
The Werewolf, Temva Lyahn, a static form hybrid, was out hunting with his brother Jack (who happens to be a static-form wolf) and their cousin Sahra, who, unlike the two brothers, could actually shift her form anywhere between complete Human and complete Wolf.  
Sahra's form was in constant motion, a snarling wolf in pursuit one moment, a stalking human huntress the next, herding a trio of deer with Jack to where Temva lay in wait, an arrow nocked to his bow.  
Once the deer were in range, two of them were instantly felled while the third was only injured, having only been struck by half an arrow instead of a whole one.  
Hunter and Huntress froze as the grazed deer escaped; Temva had vanished without a trace just as he had loosed the third arrow.  
For hours afterward the forest was filled with howls, but these calls went unanswered because of a Call that was answered.

--

Weaver Chance looked through a window in the fabricated reality around him. On a whim he imagined himself a cup of coffee into existence and took a sip.  
"Don't get too carried away describing the scene."  
What?  
"I know your there, narrating this, don't get too carried away."  
Uh, Okay. Weaver watched the events of the multi-verse, he had seen nine different incarnations of himself answer the call of worlds in distress and already knew that he would be joining them-  
"Kay, the time has come."  
"And what time would that be, darling Twer?"  
-on their ques-  
"The time to interrupt the Narrator & answer The Call of worlds in distress."  
"Oh, leave them alone, they're just trying to do their job."  
Thank you!  
"Your welcome. Would you like me to pack you some lunch before you go, dear?" Kay added mischievously.  
Weaver chuckled "No no, I'll be fine." He rose and-  
"They don't need all the details."  
Fine, Weaver rose and said farewell to his wife before answering the Call.  
"That's better. Good bye Kay, my darling wife, I shall return when my task is done." And with that he vanished.  
"Sorry about that, he can be difficult sometimes."  
I'm very aware of that fact. I'm wondering how much trouble he'll be as this story progresses.  
"I wouldn't worry about that. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a large picnic lunch to prepare."  
Of course, I'll see myself out.

--

_Who ... What ... am I?_

_--_


	2. Arrivals: Call me Joshua

_  
Voidian Knights_

_Chapter 1: Call me Joshua_

--------------------------------------

The figure looked about the forest they had found themselves in, confused as to how they had come to be there.  
Then sounds of a battle reached his ears. Like a shadow he moved through the trees until the carnage came into view.  
The scene before his eyes pulled him up sharp, a cat-girl, wielding a staff, being swarmed by monsters, a large number of which were already felled. The sheer quantity of them however was beginning to take its' tole on the sole defender; the staff wielding girl.  
Suddenly the figure leaped into the fray, reaching the girl just as her strength gave out. He snatched up the fallen staff, instantly adjusting his grip before laying flat the remnants of the mob.  
"Good! She's just exhausted," he said, checking the girl.  
Assuring himself that all she needed was rest, he set about looting the surrounding corpses, a task that provided him with a fair number of barter-able items, though for all he knew he was discarding valuable items as well.  
"Perhaps I should ask her when she wakes?" he mused, spinning her staff absently through his fingers. The moment he realized what he was doing he whacked himself in the head.  
"Ow," he rubbed his head, "Note to Self: Don't pay attention to what I'm doing; It'll be less painful that way."

-------------------------------------

Krrr looked about himself warily before returning his arrow to its' quiver and checking that he still had his supplies; good.  
He looked about himself again, by his reckoning he was in a village of tabby Nephilim and Nepharim, but that didn't seem quite right.  
"Well I'll be! I never seen a dark grey Woren before! Welcome to Worent! The name's Liam," boomed one of the Nepharim, extending a hand in greeting.  
"You misstake me surr, I am Nephirrim not ...Worren?" he replied but accepted the hand anyway.  
"Not Woren you say? And I never heard of Ne-fill-him before, how about a wrestling match?" Krrr chuckled at that.  
"Trruth be told, Irrm morre a Mrage than a Wrresstlerr, but showr mre wherre to put mry bowr and quivrrr and Ird be happy to showr-yu wrhat I can do."  
Liam paused, trying to decipher Krrr's rolling accent, before grinning.  
"Right this way Mage."  
"Krrr, Krrr Riol."  
"Ker it is then."

-------------------------------------

Jroa twitched his wing spines and fingered his sword hilt, wondering at the crater and why it smelled of a clan brother; a Dragon Clanner.  
"I tell ya, there was a town around here!"  
"Well there ain't one now." A group of about five bandits were arguing mostly about the lack of the expected town and if there would have been anything worth stealing from a new town anyway. Jroa had a feeling that they were lucky it wasn't here now as the area smelled of dragons so the town would likely have held at least one of his clan, and even those who had never ascended were dangerous; near-death having a tendency to cause more ascensions than anything else. 'Never turn your back on a dead Brood' was a saying that was already in use when he went to sleep, though maybe not so much now.  
He shifted his weight and his wings twitched again and suddenly the bandits were all staring at him. He grinned at them and leaped up drawing his sword and flaring his small wings to control his landing.  
In a matter of moments the bandits were bound by bands of earthen magic and rope.  
Sometime later Jroa reached 'Hometown.' He thought the name a little strange, but he had not come here to question it's naming, but rather to collect any bounty there might have been on his quintet of captives.  
Bounty collected, Jroa was heading towards the Inn for a room when one of the guards asked him, "Do-ya know someone by the name Ryu Bateson?"  
"No, why?"  
"It's just that ya look a lot like him is all, though we hav't seen him here for awhile."  
"He's probably a clan-brother of mine then, I'm Jroa Tlaw." Jroa continued on his way after that thinking, 'Perhaps this Ryu could tell me of our clan's status, I should try and track him down' he yawns. 'But in the morning.'

-------------------------------------

Griffin was trapped. He could feel the ocean above him, both from the pressure and his own power; he remembered well what the aura of salt water felt like, and there was a great amount of the stuff pushing down on him.  
Thankfully he could absorb power from the ground below him and the ocean above him and live off that for a few years. Hopefully someone would notice the minor effects such a thing would have on the surrounding environs and get him out, as until then he'd have to hibernate.

-------------------------------------

Kara was still grinning when her audience became a bat-winged girl, mostly due to the fact that despite her obvious differences to the soldiers(gender, number, hair and eye colour, extra appendages) her reaction was much the same: shock.  
"Hi, I'm Kara Lorrud; The Mystic Shadow Thief. Could you tell me what this wonderful looking place is?" The bat girl was still somewhat shocked but somehow found herself responding.  
"Yua Bateson, more commonly known as Patty The Phantom Thief. This is the Thieves Tomb, a place of a thousand passageways and a hundred thousand traps and locks." Patty blinked; she had practically given this strange girl her life story in the first ten words of her introduction. Kara just grinned at her.  
"Don't worry 'Patty', the treasure of your identity I'll keep. Do you mind if I call you Fan? Also, what brings someone to a place like this?" Again, Patty felt somewhat odd as she found herself answering these questions as well.  
"I'd prefer Patty, Phantom, if you insist, and people either come here to practice The Art free of persecution or to hire a thief,(.) There are a number of guilds that gather here, though any self respecting Master Thief works solo as I do."  
"Coolness. You can call me Shadow, Shade or Kara. Hmm, as you haven't heard of me nor I of you, I'd assume that I've somehow been transported to another world. So, being that that is my situation: Tell me how you have wings and if anyone else knows it."  
"My wings are a sign of my Dragon Clan heritage, and it is far from common knowledge."  
"Nice, now one more thing. Can you show me around your world, the richest cities, the finest views, the ancient places and treasures?"  
" I already told you, I work alo..." Patty suddenly found herself unable to continue.  
"That's not very nice, I'll just have to steal your resistance to the idea from you."  
"I guess I could do that." Patty final managed.  
"Wow your good! You and me are goin' ta have a blast!"

-------------------------------------

Rethan grumbled about this latest disturbance to his peace. He was on an island, the denizens of which seemed to require all his learned skill in intimidation to keep them at bay.  
He made his way to a small house he'd seen from the beach that he'd suddenly found himself on.  
When he reached the house he raised his scythe and viciously knocked on the door with it. He glared at the dark skinned man who answered.  
The man, unlike most people Rethan had met, was able to meet Rethan's disturbing gaze. Rethan blinked then closed his left eye.  
"Sorry about that, I've been having one of those days," Rethan offered in his dry voice.  
"I'd almost hate to ask, considering that left eye of yours. Why don't you come in?" the man responded, moving to allow Rethan entry.  
A wolf-like humanoid looked up from their work on arrow fletching as the two entered.  
"We don't get many visitors out this way. What brings you here?"  
"I wish I knew. One moment I was walking home after sorting out a mess in my backyard, the next I found myself on your beach to the south," Rethan sighed "I get the feeling I'll be here for a while. I'm called Rethan."  
"Bo," the wolfen one introduced himself then gestured to his companion saying "Karn."

-------------------------------------

Will suddenly found himself in a city, something more commonly found among the stone elementals of his world than any other group. What surprised him was that the inhabitants weren't elementals; he didn't know how to describe them. He did note that a number of them had small, useless, wings protruding from their backs; the air here conveyed to him the knowledge that they weren't always so small. It also conveyed to him how their speech made it vibrate and that this place was called Windia and how it liked talking to birds and that these people could once change into giant birds and speak to it as he was now.  
Then a fresh breeze flew by and brought with it the knowledge that there was only one great bird now and it was sad as it couldn't change back and talk with its' kind.  
Will sympathized with this new breezes' sadness and asked it directions. What he didn't notice is how the air vibrated thus making his question audible.  
"Wh-ere i-s Gre-Bir' Mi-na?" A number of people looked about in fright, trying to find the source of the disembodied voice.  
It wasn't long before Will was sitting high up in the Castle, conversing in the way of birds and air with the Great Bird: Mina Windia.

-------------------------------------

Rand was working his mother's field, he still couldn't think of it as his own, when there suddenly appeared a giant of a man. The man was dressed in a strange looking armour, like plate armour only the plates were attached to a sturdy harness. The whole thing looked more like it was made to keep the man from hurting or attacking himself than to protect him from an enemy, though its appearance would have been enough deterrent to keep most people away.  
Noting how skittish the man seemed, Rand approached him cautiously, surprised to find the man to be his equal in height and very nearly girth as well.  
It took some time but Rand was able to calm the man and found to his surprise that once calm he became something of a scholar. When he removed his thorn covered helm Rand was struck by how much he looked like a giant Grass Man with his blue-green skin and his red and blue hair. His powerful purple gaze, however, was more akin to Ryu's green stare than anything else Rand was familiar with.  
"My gratitude to you for calming me, my friend. I have been dubbed Rax Drakko, when I have been called anything other than 'Monster' or 'Test 2 5 1'. I'd like to thank you but all I have to offer is my strength, Berserker Rage and command over fire and ice. If you have need of any of them just ask."  
Rand just grinned at him.

-------------------------------------

Temva blinked, then he looked about himself carefully. Yes, all his senses were in agreement, he was no longer in the Lu forest of his homeland.  
He moved carefully over to where his arrow had flown and found the back end of the shaft where it had fallen. His arrow had been neatly severed, perfectly in half.  
"Useless," he said of the half arrow as he dropped it back into his quiver, possibly in the hope of at least recovering the fletching, maybe as some kind of proof as to what happened, or maybe even as a memento of his home.  
His grey eyelids slid over his silver-blue flecked golden eyes as he raised his nose into the air. He'd find the one who smelled of blood, sap and tobacco and then move on from there.  
He turned, crouched down, almost to all fours, and began to silently stalk through the trees. He was so intent on finding his target that he was almost in a meditative state, forcing all his concerns from his mind until he had to deal with them; hopefully he'd know how to by then.

-------------------------------------

Weaver appeared precisely where he knew he would. He knew he would wait there for something more to happen, and he knew he'd be itching for action before it happened.  
He sighed and looked at the insubstantial tower he had appeared in front of, at the two figures he could see trapped within through what should have been solid walls, at the seven powerful artifacts around the pair.  
"Such a thing has the Time Key wrought here. Only myself and Alterum can enter and leave as we please," he paused for a moment, "I should see if their spirits are at home."

-------------------------------------

The figure watched as the girl stirred.  
"I was wondering when you'd wake." She looked around carefully, noting the pile of corpses piled up in the clearing opposite to where they themselves were.  
"I'm Katt," she said and silence reigned at the unspoken question.  
"Call me Joshua," the figure finally answered.

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End file.
